Category: news

Busy Texans add more dates to their The Big One! schedule. Continue reading…

Pulp are really doing the thing! Last year, the reunited Britpop greats released More, their first album in 24 years. It fucking ruled. There’s been more music since, then, too. In November, Pulp shared their surprising cover of Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around.” Last month, they dropped the excellent psych-rock protest song “Begging For…

The post Pulp – “Marrying For Love” & “Cold Call On The Hot Line” appeared first on Stereogum.

Cincinnati-based duo the Montvales talk about touring survival mechanisms, investing in one’s relationship with creativity, and the time that they were billed as a French-Appalachian folk group.

If you like your metal served with a side of heavy bass and a massive dose of UK attitude, then you need to get DeadWax on your radar. The Milton Keynes outfit have just unleashed their latest single, “Bang On”, and it’s a proper high-octane collision of nu-metal grit and drum & bass energy. It’s … Continue reading DeadWax drop rave-ready single/video “Bang On” and announce new EP

Bestselling horror creator Alan Robert (The Beauty of Horror, Life of Agony) unleashes The Official Conjuring Universe Coloring Book, arriving everywhere books

Mortiis — the man who clearly refuses to stick to any one genre — is back with a new record, Ghosts of Europa, due out on June 26.

The post MORTIIS Announces New Record Ghosts Of Europa, Streams Trippy Title Track appeared first on Metal Injection.

QUIET FEAR, the Los Angeles-based post-hardcore band rooted in Chicanx DIY ethos, are thrilled to announce its sophomore album La Tierra

In a little more than a month, ’90s legend Tori Amos will release her new album In Times Of Dragons, and we’ve already heard first single “Stronger Together,” a duet with her daughter Tash. Now, Amos is doing the next obvious thing: She’s sharing a song about the alternate-reality version of herself who married an…

The post Tori Amos – “Shush” appeared first on Stereogum.

Rising forces of the British alternative scene, Profiler, are back with their latest single Late Again. Arriving at the dawn

Names are important. You can tell a lot from a name. Butch conjures a very different mental picture to Clive. You’d imagine a band called Cannibal Corpse sounding very different to one called Floral Tattoo. Could you imagine REM making it big if they’d stuck with one original suggestion; Can Of Piss? Fresh out of the Midlands is a new band who are calling themselves Blush Puppy. Obviously, it’s a pun, but the almost apologetic name implies music that is soft, friendly and slightly indistinct. It implies a sort of indie, or dream pop sound. Their debut EP is called ‘Here You Dream’ and challenges these assumptions, but in really interesting ways.

Blush Puppy are hot property. With only a couple of stand-alone singles under their belt, they’ve been snapped up by Venn Records (the label founded by former members of Gallows). It’s not hard to see why. The five tracks here are designed to establish them as a creative force. Two have been previously released, three are new, and they’re all really strong.

Describing their sound is rather tricky. It sits in a place between emo and post-hardcore without really being either. Importantly, it has a lush, welcoming shoegaze element that draws from dream-pop. Clearly it has an approach, but it’s loose enough to extend in different directions. So the one way to define it is; Blush Puppy.

Each song features soft layers and thick guitar riffs but their calling card is shared vocals. Luke Osmond, Ciaran O’Sullivan and Isabelle Smith all contribute and each is tonally different. They use this to create contrast, lavish harmonies and, combined with the chorus-soaked guitars on songs like ‘Under The Water’, create a sense of depth. Indeed, that song’s title tells you a lot about how the song feels. Because the atmospheric elements can be layered onto different structures, the songs maintain a coherent picture despite ‘Polish The Chrome’ or ‘Tears In Rain’ being built around explosive guitar parts. Indeed, the loose and fuzzy shoegaze sounds are always anchored with great thundering basslines or those dirty riffs. This is most clearly heard on ‘Stay Awake’, which is like luxuriating in a warm bath until the plug comes out and its energy drains into a huge screamo whirlpool. It’s masterful.

The EP’s name ‘Here You Dream’ fits neatly with the sound, implying a vague, slightly indefinable beauty, blurred at the edge of memory. Undoubtably this sound is shaped by Grammy winner Adrian Bushby’s production, a stunning blend that makes each song feel distinctive. This proves to be a slight curse as the two outliers – ‘Stay Awake‘ and the grungy ‘Still Asleep’ – sit at odds with the lush textures elsewhere, implying they weren’t quite sure what level to pitch it at. It’s all good though.

Blushing is associated with shyness and hesitancy, but is also a sign of being in love. ‘Here You Dream’ is a messy but undeniably brilliant EP. Like a stone dropped into a pool, the splash is impressive but it’s the ripples you need to watch.

IAN KENWORTHY